BROADview in Brief

A breastfeeding male, LGB victories, a coalition of the courageous and more...

Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash

A disadvantage of jet lag is falling asleep on deadline, but a benefit is being awake at odd hours to see overseas news come rolling in—in this case, that the British gay rights charity LGB Alliance has prevailed in the defense of its charitable status in a case brought by controversial trans charity Mermaids. The two judges couldn’t agree on whether the Alliance is a charity, but they did agree that Mermaids had no legal standing to challenge the UK Charity Commission. The LGB Alliance is one of the few organizations that focus on same-sex attracted people and same-sex rights; it’s spawned a number of global affiliates, including LGB Alliance USA. Next up: the Charity Commission’s inquiry into Mermaids' governance and practices—there’s been no word on when to expect its report. Over here, we saw the launch of the LGBT Courage Coalition.

There was awful news out of Canada this week, where three people were stabbed in a gender studies class at the University of Waterloo by a recent graduate. Canadian police are calling it a hate crime, and I hope there will be good in-depth reporting as more facts are revealed. Trudeau brought up hate speech in his response. The challenge is when legitimate debate and discussion on any issue is shut down as hate speech under the belief that this will reduce violence rather than increase it. If you’re in the mood for mulling this over, Kenan Malik wrote about gender debates for The Observer several years ago, and Daniel Bryan published a thoughtful piece on the impact of violent rhetoric, with many relevant links, for the Brookings Institute in 2021.

On the money front, Our Duty Group, a gender-skeptical parent support organization, reported on Tuesday that it is one of a number of British groups and individuals that have been denied a bank account based on their politics. This type of behavior by banks has been playing out in the United States, too, with 19 US state attorneys general accusing JP Morgan Chase of discriminating against clients with conservative religious or political beliefs. Can a business refuse service to a client it disagrees with? Gee, I wonder if anyone’s been talking about this recently. (Technically, it seems the web designer can’t refuse service to a gay couple, but she can refuse to make gay wedding websites.) In the US, political and religious affiliations are generally not covered by civil rights laws that protect characteristics like sex and sexual orientation, so it’s unlikely the Republican attorneys general will actually bring forward a lawsuit. 

In medical news, Ernesto Londoño and Azeen Ghorayshi wrote for the New York Times about families fleeing their home states to keep access to transgender medicalization. One question that I wish they’d asked parents and practitioners? “What if you’re wrong, and it turns out that drugs and surgeries worsen outcomes for more children than they help?” Helen Joyce shared her answer to that in her interview with Peter Boghossian—it would be unthinkable as a parent to accept that you may have harmed your children irrevocably. 

Also in medical news, Covid vaccine skeptic Dr. Peter McCullough shared his thoughts on research out of Finland on outcomes for trans double mastectomies. Long and short, complication rates are high in all types of trans surgeries. 

Strong opinions abound, with the curious case of the breastfeeding male causing quite the ruckus, as Jo Bartosch covered for Spiked magazine. I have thoughts about press coverage of individuals who seem to primarily be seeking press coverage, but I guess we’re in a world where it needs to be stated that males cannot be a meaningful source of biological nutrition for infants. Also in the strong opinions category, David French wrote about trans athletes in the New York Times, and the ever-wise Stephanie Davies-Arai discussed schools and British furries in The Critic. 

And finally, there were two very enlightening political pieces that came out this past week. From the left, Politico shared an in-depth look at the Delaware state senator who has had a real impact on Biden’s positions on trans issues. It explains quite a bit about the importance of personal connections in politics. And from the right, The American Conservative published a helpful explanation of the term ‘gender ideology,’ including where the label came from and why it’s controversial. To be honest, I wouldn’t have chosen that term to describe the belief that a person’s spiritual alignment with sex stereotypes trumps biological sex. It’s too broad. However, I think that ship has sailed.

I feel like I’m not covering Australia enough, so I want to give a shout-out to Bernard Lane and his Gender Clinic News Substack. He’s a journalistic voice in the wilderness from Down Under. 

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